Cable cars, reading glasses for kids, and other random Monday links

A randomized experiment just published in the American Journal of Epidemiology shows (gated) that the introduction of Metrocable in Medellin- a new cable-propelled transit system – show that interventions in neighborhood physical infrastructure can reduce violence. Good news for Rio, which just opened the third such system in Latin America

It is estimated that 10% of primary school children in developing countries have poor vision, but very few wear glasses.

A recent paper shows that wearing glasses can improve learning to an equivalent of half a year of schooling. Yet many – kids and parents – refuse them, for many reasons, not least among them price points. So one hopes that visionary – no pun intended – market based solutions – like Visionspring – which provide cheap high quality glasses scale up fast.